


the future is bright for as far as I can see

by Champagne



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Autistic Jon, Awkward Conversations, Canon Asexual Character, Emotional Baggage, Hurt/Comfort, Jon is a mess of a man and Martin loves him anyway, Jon prepares for the worst, M/M, Martin is good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21614725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Champagne/pseuds/Champagne
Summary: The thought of Martin saying yes and then finding out he can’t deal with it all later causes a physical pain in his chest.In which Jon decides to fill Martin in on the details of his eccentricities and hopes it doesn't drive him away. And Martin, bless his soul, tries his best to ease his worries.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 33
Kudos: 722





	the future is bright for as far as I can see

**Author's Note:**

> i dont feel this is angsty enough to actually tag it as angst, but there are some self image issues that Jon has that can be rough if they hit too close to home, so please be mindful when reading.
> 
> and this is loosely based on a conversation i had with my own s.o around the time we started dating because Jonathan Sims projection hours are 24/7

It’s after their third date, the night Jon feels that their relationship was going to morph into something Real, something Serious, that he invites Martin up to his flat.

“We need to talk,” he says, and nods inside. It takes a solid few seconds of looking at Martin’s veiled panicked expression for Jon to realize his mistake, and he frowns, feeling dread pool in his own stomach. “It’s nothing bad, not really. There are just some things you need to know.”

“Okay,” Martin whispers, and follows Jon inside.

Jon puts his thoughts in order on the way up. 

Most important: his intentions. His and Martin’s. Serious Dating does not necessarily include everything typically seen in those cheesy romantic comedies Georgie likes to watch. Jon has a few strong feelings about the “required” aspects of romantic involvement, and the thought of stumbling upon those barriers through overeager exploration is...it makes him feel sick. So, get those out of the way, hoping Martin is in it for more than the physical aspect of a relationship, and move on to point two.

Point two being: Jon is a deeply annoying person, still, after all these years. As a child, he had the soft excuse of being, well, a child. Not knowing any better. As an adult he has no such excuse, aside from being alone long enough that his bad habits as a child evolved into bad habits as an adult. It’s difficult to fix personal problems with no one around to tell him that they’re problems, and even harder when he’s told by insults and snapping and then departure. Knowledge is power, in a variety of ways, but having the wherewithal to do something with that knowledge is a different skill altogether, and one Jon has always lacked. Georgie has helped with his godawful communication, but she can only do so much without sacrificing her own time, and he could never ask that of her.

Jon opens his door and lets Martin enter first. Martin mutters an apology for intruding, and shucks his coat while Jon closes and locks door behind them.

“Tea?” Jon asks, and motions for Martin to sit on his worn couch.

Martin shakes his head, and at first Jon expects this to be his answer to the tea question, but then Martin says, “I’ll make it. Calms me down.” He pokes his head around the corner and enters the kitchen when he finds it. “Where’s your kettle?”

“Above the sink,” he calls after him, and takes off his own coat. He feels the tension in his shoulders not just his own and the dread crashing against his insides like a wave.

Point three: Jon’s host of mental and physical eccentricities. His trauma, his trust issues, his anxiety, his nightmares, his still awful communication skills. His— Georgie called it stimming. His verbal ticks, his inability to modulate tone, his waspish personality based partially on his lack of emotional intelligence paired with ridiculously high empathy. Asking Martin to deal with all of it is— The thought of Martin saying yes and then finding out he can’t deal with it later causes a physical pain in his chest, and Jon shakes out his hands to distract himself from the sensation.

“Alright?” Martin asks from the kitchen doorway, frowning with curious concern lighting his eyes that makes Jon’s heart skip a beat.

“Alright,” Jon says, and forces himself to stop shaking out his hands, missing the feeling the moment it stops.

Martin closes the distance between them and gently touches Jon’s shoulder, still not used to being allowed to touch him whenever he wants. The thought warms Jon in such a way that he finds himself smiling, and Martin shyly smiles back. He hustles back to the kitchen when he remembers that he was making tea, and Jon takes a seat on the couch and starts threading the hem of his shirt through his fingers.

Martin hands Jon a cup of hot tea and sits down across from him, one leg folded on the cushion so he can face Jon, and he smiles and takes a sip. Jon smiles back and revels in the tea, made exactly how he likes it.

Then the tension is a physical thing in the air and Jon chokes on his tea and tries to find an in to the conversation. Martin clears his throat and traces the mouth of his cup with a finger, but doesn’t say anything. It’s suffocating, and Jon desperately wants to break the silence and start this conversation, but his earlier mistake still lingers in Martin’s frown like a mask and he’s worried nothing he’s going to say will make that frown go away.

Jon is halfway done with his tea when Martin clears his throat again and asks, voice low and raspy, “What did you want to talk about?”

Jon hates the grip on his heart, a pain making it hard to breathe, a nervousness too well worn and familiar in Martin, and he runs the fingertips of one hand over his jeans to try to lessen the squeezing. “There are some…” Jon frowns at his tea. “Issues,” he settles on. “That you should know about, before we.” He motions between them, and returns with renewed desperation to the texture of denim. “Make this. Serious.”

“Okay,” Martin says, still raspy. He sounds raw already, but he gives Jon a quavering, shy smile that’s trying, and Jon nods. “Like what?”

“This. Us.” Jon sets the cup down on the coffee table and motions between them, and starts wringing his hands. Martin’s eyes follow the motion and stay there, anxiety weighing them both down while Jon tries to find the right words. “I’m not.” He shakes his head. “I’m. I, I don’t--” Getting the words out is hard, a square peg through a circular hole, trying to find a way to fit his shortcomings into this relationship in a way that won’t drive Martin away, at least not immediately.

Martin puts a hand over Jon’s, and Jon grabs it, running his fingers over the skin and fine hairs.

“It’s okay, Jon,” he says, so quietly it can’t even be described as a whisper. The resignation there is a hollow ringing, tinnitus in the tense silence, and Jon squeezes Martin’s hand so hard that Martin looks up at him, now confused. It’s enough of a distraction that the pressure in Jon’s chest lessens, and he inhales.

“I don’t like. Sex.” He purses his lips and looks down at Martin’s hand, parts of the skin white where Jon is holding on too tightly. “It. It makes me. Just thinking about it makes me.” He shudders.

Martin is staring at him. The ringing is gone, the squeezing is just the faint feeling of a hand over his heart, and the blank confusion is a sheet thrown over it all and dampening it to a vague discomfort. Then Martin smiles, and the relief is so strong Jon’s breath catches in his throat.

“Okay,” Martin says, still quiet but no longer fading away. “Okay. I understand.”

“I-I just. I wanted you to, to know before we.” Jon shudders again, and Martin sets his cup down beside Jon’s and holds his hands in both of his. Martin’s right hand is rougher than his left, and Jon pets the skin there with his fingers. “It’s not. _All_ bad, but. A lot of trial and error, and I don’t. I didn’t. Want to give you the wrong idea.”

Martin squeezes his hands. Jon enjoys the pressure. “Okay,” he says again. Then, after a moment, asks, “Are we both being honest, here?”

Jon frowns at him, and something about that makes Martin smile a little. “Yes, I’d hope so.”

“Okay.” Martin inhales, holds the breath for a few seconds, then exhales. “I don’t...entirely understand,” he says, and runs a thumb along Jon’s knuckles. “I want to, though. I, I. It sounds...rough? For you?” Jon snorts, and Martin’s smile grows brighter, amused and relieved and warming Jon’s chest like pure sunlight. “We don’t have to, to do _anything_ , if--”

“I have boundaries I will not cross,” Jon says, and his hard tone makes Martin pause, and then smile again, a fondness in his eyes overtop a vague disappointment that stings. “I. I want to find out what leads up to those boundaries, though. With you,” he mumbles, and Jon has to look down at their joined hands, because looking Martin in the eye is too much after admitting that.

Martin squeezes his hands again. “Okay,” he says softly. “Thank you for telling me, Jon.”

Jon tugs at Martin’s hands and frowns. “That’s not everything,” he grumbles, and the sigh Martin lets out isn’t annoyed, it isn’t frustrated, it’s...fond. It fits perfectly with the small, wry smile he’s taken to using whenever Jon is up to some sort of antics again.

“What else do you want to talk about?”

“I’m.” Jon huffs. “I’m very bad at. At, well, everything. I’m not. It’s hard for me to be...patient. Or, or kind. Or--”

“I know,” Martin interrupts, and squeezes Jon’s hands again. It calms the pounding of his heart, and by the pointed way Martin glances him over, Martin knows it and is doing it on purpose.

“I haven’t changed much since I was a child,” Jon grumbles. “And I was a deeply annoying child.”

Martin makes a noise that Jon can’t name, and he’s frowning. “You were just a kid. Kids are allowed to be annoying.”

“And now?” Jon asks, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

Martin’s frown changes a little, and Jon sees an anger brimming in Martin that’s so unusual it takes him a moment to process that it’s not directed at him. “It’s.” He grips Jon’s wrists, and Jon looks down at Martin’s white knuckles and furrows his brow. “I _understand_ ,” Martin says, and grabs Jon’s hands again, lacing their fingers together. “People are, people are hard. I’m not even autistic, and people are hard.”

Jon’s hands spasm, and Martin starts rubbing his thumbs along the edges of Jon’s palms.

“I understand what you’re trying to say, I think,” he continues, and Jon focuses on the feeling of Martin’s thumbs moving back and forth on his skin. “I mean, I don’t, I can’t understand everything, but I, I think I know what you’re trying to say?”

“Do you?” Jon asks, and he doesn’t mean for it to come out as a jab but it does.

Martin seems unaffected. “You, you’re not, learning how to deal with people is hard already, and it takes a long time, and you.” He lets go of one hand to motion at Jon, up and down, searching for the words. “I can’t even, I don’t remember the word right now, but you feel what people around you feel and that sounds-- that sounds like it can hurt. Too many people sounds godawful. So you, you stuck to your books and stayed at home and-- I _understand_ , I do.”

Jon mumbles, “I don’t know if you do.” because his already terrible filter is shot from nerves. The hand still holding his tightens, but he doesn’t look up.

“It’s easier to deal with it if people don’t get close to you,” Martin says, so confident and sure that Jon takes it as a general fact for just a moment. “Because the closer someone is to you, the more you, you feel what they feel. And not just, like, being your friend, but proximity too. Right?”

The requested confirmation at the end has Jon smiling, and Martin smiles back, looking worn and tired, but stubborn and happy too.

“Right,” Jon says, because he is.

“So I, I know that you get pretty snappy when you’re overwhelmed, or tired, or-or hungry, even. I know that you use it as a defense to keep yourself level. It took me a long time to notice,” he says, now embarrassed. “But I did, eventually. I’m sorry that I bothered you so much, with tea and making sure you took lunch and, and all that.”

“Martin,” Jon says, because again, he doesn’t know what else to say.

Martin takes Jon’s other hand again and smiles at him, and the confidence he feels is a good, solid weight on his shoulders, like his favorite weighted blanket. “Is there anything else?”

Jon asks, “It doesn’t bother you?” before he can stop himself, and feels his face burn when Martin scoffs.

“Not like you think it does,” he says, and that answer feels so Right that he has to blink away tears. Martin makes a small noise of concern, but Jon shakes his head.

“Explain it to me. Please.”

“O-oh. Well.” Martin starts wiggling his fingers, the ones laced with Jon’s, and the rubbing is pleasant, if a little rough from the stick of sweat. “I, I know you have places where some things go and everything else is kind of, not that important? So they go anywhere. And I don’t like mess, so I feel like I need to clean it up, but then you always seem to know where things were in that mess and get all confused and, and snippy when I say I cleaned it. So I...get annoyed, a little, sometimes, but I try to just organize where you put things and that helps us both, I think.”

“I’ve noticed,” Jon says, because he has. The archives are still a relative disaster, but there are sections, boxes and filing cabinets, that are neat and somewhat organized in their own contained ways. “Thank you.”

“Then there’s when you’re all, well. Cranky?” Martin laughs, breathy and light, when Jon scrunches his nose in distaste. “That can be a bit...a bit much, if I’m having a bad day too. And I sometimes.” He sighs. “I sometimes forget that it’s not the same for me as it is for, for you. So I get— not _mad_ , but. Upset? When you’re...like that.”

Jon just nods, not sure what to say to that that wouldn’t upset Martin. He’s made it quite clear that he won’t tolerate Jon talking down on himself. Which he doesn’t quite understand, but he likes Martin happy and smiling, so he’s willing to keep those thoughts to himself.

“There are things I like about it, too,” Martin says. He just smiles at Jon when he gets a blank stare. “It’s not all bad. I don’t think anything can be all bad. So there are things that, that you do that I like, too? Or, at least, find...” He clears his throat. Jon smiles a little, feeling the simmering fondness in his lungs.

“Like?”

“You spin you’re cups,” Martin says immediately. Jon looks at their abandoned cups of tea and blinks. “It keeps your hands busy. Like, like this.” He reaches over and starts rotating his cup in place, until the handle makes a complete circle, and then he rotates it the other direction.

“Oh.”

“You didn’t notice?” Martin asks, and his voice is bubbling over with that fondness. He smiles wide and shakes his head. “That’s…”

Jon purses his lips. He knows Martin isn’t making fun of him, but he’s not a fan of the ribbing nonetheless. “Any other examples?” he says, and sounds far more irate than he feels.

“And I think.” Martin blushes, and the color looks so nice on his face that Jon stares at him, which makes him blush more, darker, and it’s beautiful. And ample punishment for the teasing. “I like your.” He shakes one hand in the air a little, and Jon nods. “I think it’s cute.”

“Cute.” Jon scoffs and looks down, but feels himself blush as well. He focuses on Martin’s thumb running against the side of his palm and smiles. “You’ve gotten quite good at it.”

“I-I try to keep track,” Martin says, his voice sounding embarrassed but his shoulders are pulled back and sure. “I know I forget, a lot, and there are things you don’t like, but I try. Squeezing is the easy one.”

Martin squeezes Jon’s hand, and Jon hums. “Yes. I like that.”

“So.” Jon looks up, and Martin is chewing on his lower lip. “So I know that this isn’t going to be, be easy, definitely not. But I want to try. I do, I _do_ like you, Jon. We’re three dates in and unless you’re hiding a third arm or a homicidal streak somewhere, I don’t think there’s anything you can do that will drive me away.”

“Don’t say that,” Jon mutters, and looks down again.

“I _mean_ it.” Martin’s hand is soft against his chin and cheek, and he tilts Jon’s head up to look at him. Martin stares into his eyes, a determined frown on his face, and Jon begins to squirm under the prolonged eye contact. He looks at Martin’s mouth instead once Martin lets him go. “I’m going to try for you, Jonathan Sims, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“I’d.” Jon swallows the lump in his throat. “I’d like that. Very much.”

Martin leans forward, and Jon does the same until his face is tucked against Martin’s shoulder and he’s running a hand along Jon’s spine. “I’m not without my own problems,” Martin says into his hair, and sounds far too amused for Jon’s liking. “But we can work on them together. Right?”

Jon lets out a breath. “Right.”

**Author's Note:**

> shout out once again to the magnus writers discord server for easing my anxieties about posting and being good, supportive, funny people


End file.
